The First 21st Century Treadmill

I'M NOT MUCH FOR GIMMICKS, BUT the new Alter-G treadmill is flat-out the most amazing training device for runners that I've ever seen. Note: I haven't run on one, as there are none in my immediate area, but I've talked to people, and studied up, and thought about the implications, and I can't stop myself from concluding: Damn, I want one of those. Of course, I might need a few more jobs to scrape up the $75,000. Or maybe I should just take a second mortgage on the house?

The Alter-G is a treadmill that makes you lighter. This means you can run faster and farther, and also avoid injuries. If you've got anything else on your runners' wish list, you don't deserve to see another Christmas.

I'm not the first to discover the Alter-G. Alberto Salazar was way ahead of me. This has happened a few times before, like back when he was a scrawny teen from MA and I was wizened 30 yr. old geriatric road runner in New England. But that was then, and this is a never-never land where watches make phone calls and measure your running speed, and treadmills are space-age devices not a rusty collection of bolts and belts.

In fact, the Alter-G comes straight from NASA research. At NASA they're always playing around with ways to make astronauts heavier to maintain their muscle and bone health in a weightless space environment. So it figures that a NASA researcher named Rob Whalen would invent a treadmill that makes you lighter, and then turn the idea over to his son Sean. It's like the guy who was studying blood pressure medications when he discovered Viagra. Things weren't going down; they were going up.

The Whalens could imagine a variety of uses for a low-gravity treadmill, and Salazar could imagine elite runners hitting new peaks. On the Alter-G Web site, he says: "By reducing my athletes' effective body weight using the G-Trainer, they have increased their training volume by up to 25 percent without any increased risk of injury. This has enabled our runners to compete at their highest level ever."

In a cool video that you can see here, , Adam Goucher says: "When I had an ankle injury recently [apparently in 2006], I was able to take off about 10 percent off my body weight, continue running, and not feel any ankle pain at ll. For me, it's the best cross-training method I've ever had."

Before his May 19 victory over Craig Mottram in the Healthy Kidney 10-K, where he set a course record [28:08] for the Central Park 10K loop, Dathan Ritzenhein told Runner's World Online that he had been recovering from a metatarsal hot spot by running up to 130 miles a week on the Alter-G, sometimes also called the G Trainer. And he did it in one of those low-altitude rooms (hypobaric chambers). Ritzenhein was able to train with a near stress-fracture because he dialed his weight down to just 65 percent of normal, reducing the impact force that produces many running injuries. "It was so much better than any other kind of cross-training that I've ever tried to do," he said.

The Alter-G achieves takeoff by increasing the air-pressure surrounding a runner's lower body. This isn't easy to visualize, but it becomes clear the minute you look at photos and videos. The system reminds me of the way kayak skirts keep water out of your kayak.

An Alter-G project manager named Tom Allen has seen hobbled 350-lb NFL lineman who could do an actual running workout once they got on an Alter-G and knocked off about 100 lbs. (A simple up/down control on the treadmill console allows you to choose the percent of your body weight that you want; the air pressure is then recalibrated 1000 times per second to insure an absolutely smooth "ride.") Allen has seen people with Parkinson's, barely able to move, get on an Alter-G and run a 12-minute pace. He notes that many of America's morbidly obese, too fat to even walk at a reasonable effort, would be able to start exercising on an Alter-G. Okay, he works there and he's biased. But check it out.

Allen has also seen a friend, 3:58 miler David Torrence, run a 3:40 Alter-G mile. That's the sort of thing that would impress an Alberto Salazar. Heck, it impresses me. If I were training for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, I'd want one of these at my health club. Or, even better, in my basement in front of a big video screen.

There are no shortcuts to distance-running success, no magic pills--at least not legal ones. But small advantages can deliver big results. And it seems to me that the Alter-G Treadmill is a nice advantage to have in your corner.

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